When I was a kid, I prowled the library to check out the thickest, heaviest books I could find. Two Years Before the Mast. The Wandering Jew. Quo Vadis. Books I could fall into and pretend I lived in the past. Places I dreamed of visiting some day. As a teen, I discovered my grandmother's 5-volume sets of Hemingway, the short stories of Poe and de Maupassant. I began writing poetry and short stories then.

Sometimes it seemed that my family moved every time the rent was due. I attended some 13 high schools on the West coast of the US and daydreamed of attending college. I balanced working full time with taking classes; it took ten years to earn my degree, with odd jobs and careers in international banking and corporate consulting along the way before I became an English teacher at a community college where I taught for 26 years.

Today, I live in Spokane, in eastern Washington, with my husband, and close to our daughter, her husband, and two amazing granddaughters. Restless feet and writing projects keep us traveling. This winter, we'll head south to Tucson, taking laptop along to work on my latest project . . . a mystery about art crime in Egypt! Happy reading.